Yeah my compost bin can be BONE DRY and when I add leftovers and table scraps and pieces of veggies and fruit I get BSFL on the items. NOT in all areas of my bin but in the EXACT items. An example would be melon rinds or avocados. The BSFL live only in certain foods and NOT in the rest of the bin as my bin is never over wet. They eat and poop and fly away. So for a person to say that they are a result of an over wet or over damp bin is only HALF correct. BSFL are a result of what is IN your bin also. Like I said, your bin can be bone dry but as soon as you add some veggies or fruits with a bit of moisture your bound to get some kind of bugs. As long as your bin is not over ridden and FULL of bugs or soaking wet it is OK and Its all part of the process. Just keep your bin semi dry and a little moist and you should have no problems cutting down on the "bug" population. If its too wet you can open it up and air it out for a day or two. Personally I find a small population of BSFL are beneficial to the bin.

Hi there MHERRON2213! It normally takes between 3-6 months for the worms to migrate and really should be a min of 3 months to allow as many of the eggs to hatch for the babies to move up. (assuming you are wanting to increase worm population) Ensure any larger or un-composted materials in the 1st bin are transferred to the 2nd bin along with a handful of the compost from the first bin. ( I've found this helps get the second bin started.) Also remember that it would take at least a week or 2 for the bin to inoculate before the worms would move up and then they will retreat after a feast for a bit until their new home is the way they like it, No matter how long you wait though, you will never have 100% migrate up. If waiting on cocoons to hatch is not a priority and you just want to transfer them to the next bin.. place the 1st bin on top of the 2nd bin and then shine a light over the top of it. Every 10 or so mins.. scrape away about an inch of the compost with your hands and the worms will keep going deeper and eventually into the new bin at the bottom.. This will only work if you have holes in the bottom of the 1st bin. If you don't have holes in the 1st bin.. place a garbage bag over the 2nd bin (just a single sheet of it) with several holes in it and then place several handfuls of compost on the bag at a time. Simply use the light method until you have scraped away all the compost.. the worms will then go through the holes in the bag and into the new bin. Takes approx 1 -2 hours depending on how long between scraping off of the compost. Hope this helps :)

I am fairly new to worms myself, but it sounds you're doing the right thing for the moisture. It probally just needs a little time. The critters a probally BSF. As long as the bin is outside, you'll probally have them. I pick them out and feed to my Chickens. They are not supposed to harm the worms, though they appear as if they would. Since the adult fly doesn't like being inside, if you move the bin back inside you might find after one cycle the larvae are gone.

Personally, I would not add any orange peels... the pulp, though acidic, should be okay if you don't overdo it. The peel contains a goodly amount of d'limonene which is harmful not only to the worms but also to most of the other creatures in the bin. Your worms are only one of the many inhabitants of the bin. The health and balance of all these composting workers are necessary to keep the worms happily eating. I don't have a worm factory, so I'm not familiar with the particulars of bin size (surface area and bedding volume) but one pound of worms doesn't sound like a lot of worms. For a reference, I started with 8000 worms spread across two bins (each a 27-gallon tote, around 2/3rds filled mostly with coir for bedding) and it took 3 months just to achieve a balanced eco-system and that's when the bins/worms really began to take off. I was able to harvest quite a lot in vermicompost just two months later... that would be 5 months since starting the bins. It takes time. Also I'm learning that bedding temperature can have a significant effect on speed at which the worms process through the foodstuffs. Where is your worm factory located? can you accurately measure or estimate the bedding temperatures? (I say temperatures because it will vary somewhat depending upon where each measurement is taken at). Red wigglers seem to get quite active when the temps remain reliably above 65F... don't go by air temperature as the two can differ quite significantly depending upon a number of factors. Also, what are you using for your bedding? Oh, and about the tomatoes... others have mentioned it before but its worth repeating as I didn't really listen too well and managed to put a couple tomatoes, seeds and all, into the bins thinking its no big deal... well, I've been pulling young tomato plants up from everything I've spread the vermicompost on thus far... I'm just glad it was only a couple small tomatoes and I ran them through a juicer prior to adding to the bin. Perhaps if you zap the tomatoes in the micro before adding to the bin that would prevent the seeds sprouting from the vermicompost months later, either that or strain the pulp first before putting into the bin.